Incarnate Abilities Buyer's Guide

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Caveats

This is written for Homecoming: City of Heroes Issue 27, which has the following differences from the Live Incarnate System.

Incarnate Abilities: Convert Window Notes

The Incarnate system is designed to push players to make costly mistakes, such as purchasing a T1 power when a T4 is already slotted. Doesn't harm a build, but it wastes resources.

Keep in mind the following:

  • Incarnate Shards and Incarnate Shard Salvage ONLY applies for the Alpha Slot. Once Alpha Tier IV is unlocked, remaining Astral Merits and Incarnate Shards are best used for Thread Conversion.
  • Salvage Types CANNOT be mixed. Incarnate Shard Salvage CANNOT be used for Incarnate Thread Recipes and vice versa.
  • Once Salvage has been crafted, unused Salvage can be converted back into Incarnate Shards (1 per Breakdown) or Incarnate Threads (varies on rarity) to use elsewhere, but at a loss. It is important to craft only what you need to complete a recipe.

It may help to take notes or map out a plan. It is a lot of information to track.

The Hard Way

Costs are NOT Cumulative except when mentioned at the end: each Tier power is required to be crafted to reach the next higher one, but salvage and currencies start from 0 each time.

Regardless of which recipe you choose to purchase (Power or Recipe Components), the costs per tier is always the same.

Tier 1

To Craft:
Three specific pieces of Common Incarnate Shard OR Incarnate Thread Salvage.

Cost:
Alpha Slot: 12 shards total for one Tier 1 power choice.
Other Slots including Alpha: 60 Threads total for one Tier 1 power choice.

Tier 2

To Craft:
Two specific pieces of Common Incarnate Shard OR Incarnate Thread Salvage (this will recur for the remaining Tiers as well),
AND
One specific piece of Uncommon Incarnate Shard OR Incarnate Thread Salvage for a total of three items.

Cost:
Alpha Slot: 20 Shards for one Tier 2 Power Choice.
Other Slots including Alpha: 100 Threads for one Tier 2 Power Choice.

Tier 3

Alpha and other slots diverge broadly here:

Alpha Slot Only
Two Pieces of Common Incarnate Shard Salvage, plus a Notice of The Well:

  • If crafted, a Notice costs 12,500,000 INF, 40 Incarnate Shards, and requires crafting one each of the following Uncommon Salvage (each component also costing 8 shards each + 1 Common Salvage Piece at 4 shards resulting in 12 shards for each single item and altogether 48 shards for all four bought at once):
    • Drop of the Well
    • Incarnate Infused Nictus
    • Infinite Tessellation
    • Vanguard DNA Metamatrix
  • Plus: 2 Common Shard Salvage Components for the Incarnate Recipe itself apart from the above. (8 Shards.)
  • Or, what most players do: earn one for free at Level 50 by completing a Weekly Strike Target.

Other Slots including Alpha
Thread Recipes start to get harder, too, as well:
Two specific pieces of Incarnate Thread Salvage,
AND
One specific piece of Rare Incarnate Thread Salvage, made with:

  • 25 million Influence
  • 100 Incarnate Threads
  • And one each of the Uncommon Incarnate Thread Salvage Items (at 60 Threads per piece at 240 Threads for all four at once:)
    • Cytolitic Infusion
    • Dimensional Pocket
    • Gluon Pocket
    • Worn Spellbook

Totals:
Alpha Slot: Crafted -- 12.5 mil INF, 56 Shards... or Earned Notice -- 8 Shards and 1 Notice of The Well.
Other Slots including Alpha: 25 mil INF, 340 Threads.

Tier 4

Whatever your feelings on Demon Lore Pets may be, this character is ready for Tier 4.

For Tier 4, there's two pieces of bad news.

1. You cannot progress to Tier 4 on any Slot without repeating the prior crafting path from Tier 1 through Tier 3 all over again, this time crafting the other half of the tree. Two opposite Tier 3 powers are required to be consumed to produce Tier 4. (See the picture to the right: it doesn't matter which two are purchase as long as one is on the left and the other is on the right.)

So Going Back Through Tier 1-3 a 2nd Time:
88 Shards on top of the prior Tier 1-3 crafting
OR 440 Threads and 25 Million INF on top of the prior Tier 1-3 crafting.

2. This is where the simplicity of methods inverts itself: the Alpha Recipe is the simpler one to understand than any Threads Recipe:

Alpha Slot Only
Two pieces of Common Incarnate Shard Salvage plus a Favor of the Well:

  • 32 Incarnate Shards
  • 2 Notice of The Wells

Favor of the Wells CANNOT be earned in-game, they must be crafted.

Other Slots Including Alpha
Like the Tier III counterpart above, another layer of complexity:
Two pieces of Common Incarnate Thread Salvage,
AND
One Very Rare Incarnate Salvage Component.

Each Very Rare Threads Salvage Component requires:

  • 100 million INF
  • One each of the Rare Thread Component Salvage items:
    • Ancient Texts
    • Exotic Isotope
    • Semi-Conscious Energy
    • Superconductive Membrane

Each Rare Thread Component is a nesting doll of threads:

  • One Rare Thread Component (Forbidden Technique, Living Relic, Self Evolving Alloy OR Thaumic Resonator)
    • Four Very Rare Components at 960 Threads + 100 million INF
      • Four Uncommon Incarnate Thread Salvage items at 240 Threads + 100 million INF
        • Four Common Incarnate Thread Salvage items for each one of the above at 60 threads each.

Cumulative Totals

Incarnate Shards (Alpha Slot Only)
Tier Level Shards Spent INF/Tokens Spent
Tier I x2 24 Shards
Tier II x2 40 Shards
Tier III x2
(Crafting)
96 Shards 25 mil INF
Tier IV 242 Shards 25 mil INF
Total
(Crafting)
498 Shards 50 mil INF
Using NOTW x3 -386 Shards -50 mil INF
Adjusted Total 112 Shards 0 INF
Incarnate Threads (Any Slot)
Tier Level Threads Spent INF Spent
Tier I x2 120 Threads
Tier II x2 200 Threads
Tier III x2 560 Threads 50 mil INF
Tier IV 1,000 Threads 200 mil INF
Total 1,880 Threads 250 mil INF
Both tables ignore power choices: especially Tier II and higher, there are enough recipes listed for any valid combination of powers assuming Tier III left and right side choices are honored.

A Better Way...

Salvage Tables

There are two places for Incarnate Salvage Tables:

  • Incarnate Arcs and Task Forces which offer Incarnate Salvage as a reward drop.
  • Incarnate Trials, which offer a full range of reward drops:
    • All Trials will offer drops of Common or Uncommon Salvage at the very least for any player who stays from start to finish (or if the Trial is completed; failed trials do not get reward tables.)
    • Trials apart from Behavioral Adjustment Facility and Lambda Sector Trial have a higher chance to drop Rare and Very Rare tables in addition to Common or Uncommon Salvage.
    • Underground Trial completion is longer than the rest, therefore the Common/Uncommon Reward Table does not apply, guaranteeing a Rare or Very Rare reward table at the end.

Salvage gained this way skips past crafting requirements dramatically, allowing players to complete Incarnate Crafting faster.

Use Empyrean Merits

Salvage EmpyreanMerit.png

Empyrean Merits can speed up Tier 3 and Tier 4 Salvage Crafting with a simpler cost:

  • 8 Empyrean Merits to craft one Rare Incarnate Thread Salvage item.
  • 30 Empyrean Merits to craft one Very Rare Incarnate Thread Salvage item.

Empyrean Merits only work on Incarnate Thread recipes and cannot be traded or used to craft Notice of The Well/Favor of The Well tokens. (Although both tokens can be converted directly into Threads.)

Adjusted Thread/Merits Overview

Knowing how hard it is to craft (or earn a drop of) Tier 4 Incarnate Salvage, this should be a sigh of relief.
Tier 1

To Craft:
Three specific pieces of Common Incarnate Thread Salvage.

Cost:
60 Threads total for one Tier 1 power choice.

Tier 2

To Craft:
Two specific pieces of Common Incarnate Thread Salvage,
AND
One specific piece of Uncommon Incarnate Thread Salvage for a total of three items.

Cost:
100 Threads for one Tier 2 Power Choice.

Tier 3

To Craft:
Two specific pieces of Common Incarnate Thread Salvage,
AND
8 Empyrean Merits to purchase a Rare Incarnate Thread Salvage component.

Cost:
40 Threads and 8 Empyrean Merits.

Tier 4

To Craft:
Two specific pieces of Common Incarnate Thread Salvage,
AND
30 Empyrean Merits to purchase a Very Rare Incarnate Thread Salvage component.

Cost:
40 Threads and 30 Empyrean Merits.

Cumulative Total
Empyrean Merits + Threads
Tier Level Emp. Merits Threads Used
Tier 1 x2 120 Threads
Tier 2 x2 200 Threads
Tier 3 x2 16 Emp.Mts. 80 Threads
Tier 4 30 Emp.Mts. 40 Threads
Total 46 Emp.Mts. 440 Threads

Mitigating Mistakes

Take advantage of Sidegrades.

This feature allows you to 'reroll' a salvage piece to a different one in the same level in case of a mistake made. This can be faster than waiting to earn/re-create missing salvage. Losing threads is less of a setback than losing merits, or waiting even longer to use the salvage for a different power/path.

Breakdowns on the other hand should be a last-resort.

If the salvage made can be used elsewhere in your Incarnate Slot plan, waiting to spend it is always better than breaking it down to component threads/shards at a loss. Remember: Incarnate components have unlimited storage - you cannot run out of room with Incarnate Salvage crafted or earned.

Breaking down Incarnate Shard salvage when your Alpha Slot is finished is acceptable when you have no plans to unlock other Alpha Slot abilities.

There is no Undo.

Other than those two methods, salvage cannot ever be brought back to pre-crafting components. And any Incarnate Powers crafted are permanent (unless the power is consumed in Tier-to-Tier progress.)

Resist the urge to use Empyrean Merits for extra Threads.

It is strongly advised not to use Empyrean Merits to breakdown into Threads from the Veteran Levels rewards for the following reasons:

  • Playing regular Level 50 content will earn threads.
  • Shards can be broken down into Threads (1:1 for 1,000,000 INF every 24 hours, 10 each. Or 2:1 for free anytime, or 10 Shards to 5 Threads each.) Unneeded Incarnate Shard salvage can be broken down into Shards for the same conversion as well.
  • Astral Merits can be converted to 4 Threads per merit as well.

There should be enough Empyrean Merits in Veteran Levels 1-100 to attain Tier 4 in all six slots at least ONCE, with some left over in case of mistakes. The remainder have more value as Transcendent Merit use for other characters on your account if you do not wish to unlock any more Incarnate powers (for example; multiple builds with different Incarnate abilities for each build).

Conclusion

Which begs the question: which method(s) would you prefer to use for Incarnate Progress?